For many years now we’ve been hearing the word ‘activist.’.
If often refers to those mindless demonstrators who block public roads to stop the rest of us going about our business.
They seem to think that if they do this, they will persuade the rest of us to agree with them.
They seem to think that we’ll sit in our cars quietly fuming, and at the same time be persuaded to change how we think— ‘Ah yes,’ we’ll think, ‘these dear people who are blocking the public highway must be right and I’ll support their cause from now on.’
Except, it doesn’t quite work like that, does it?
These ‘activists’ actually achieve nothing except nuisance status.
And we suspect they are gluing themselves to the road because they have no idea how to mount an intelligent argument.
The word ‘activist’ means ‘a person who believes strongly in political or social change and takes part in activities such as public protests to try to try to make this happen’ (Cambridge English Dictionary).
This word first appeared in print (with this meaning) in America (in the Atlantic Monthly) in 1920.
And now there is a new variation on this older word: ‘clicktivism.’
This seems to go back only to 2006 and is used these days to label activist campaigners who do all their activism and all their campaigning online—usually on social media sites.
This the crowd that piles on to anyone who disagrees with them on Instagram or X and abuses them up hill and down dale.
So, clearly this is the same mentality that says, ‘If I annoy people enough, they’ll start agreeing with me.’
These folk are not only activists, but they are also lazy activists—who can manage noting more energetic than sitting in their bedroom, with their laptop, eating donuts and abusing everyone else.
Not only are these people (for the most part) both wrong and ignorant in matters of politics, society and culture—they don’t have the faintest idea of how to communicate, let alone how to persuade.
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